Set the Table

Garlic scapes are one of those totally edible and delicious things that most people don’t even know exist. Every spring, hardneck varieties of garlic (having overwintered but not ready to harvest until July) send up a curlycue stem with a bulbil up top. The bulbil is sort of a mini bulb that can grow new garlic in a couple years or just be eaten like garlic right now.

If, like many of us, you are struggling to pay for heat this winter and are keeping your thermostat down in the 50-degree range, you might like to know about a vegetable with an amazing capacity to warm you from the inside out. One taste—even one whiff—of the stuff and a jolt of heat travels from your nose to the top of your head and then permeates your entire body, guaranteed to banish any lingering chill. I’m talking about horseradish, that venerable old root that, in the Jewish tradition, is essential for a proper Passover Seder (the horseradish root, or moror, represents the bitterness of slavery).

I was drinking a glass of wine with a colleague when she told me that she and her husband make wine. In a garage. With friends. I was intrigued. I know plenty of people who brew beer in their bathtub (so to speak) but I’d never met anyone who makes wine at home. When I expressed interest, she invited me to join their next winemaking season. So I put a reminder in my Google calendar and eight months later, voila: “Call Marianne about winemaking” popped up.

Originally appearing in our Spring 2013 issue, this article gets creative with Vermont maple and Vermont spirits. In this very maple-y week we're returning to some of our favorite articles on how to enjoy maple syrup!

The Land of Bog is a mysterious world of acidic, sandy peat soil and an abundance of water. Here live the cranberries: low-trailing vines with small evergreen leaves and tart, wine-colored berries. They are wise and venerable plants that theoretically can live forever; some cranberries on Cape Cod are more than 150 years old.

What we do

Our stories, interviews, and essays reveal how Vermont residents are building their local food systems, how farmers are faring in a time of great opportunity and challenge, and how Vermont’s agricultural landscape ties into larger questions of sustainability and the future of our food supply.